Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Notochord
/ˈnoʊtəkɔːrd/noun
The flexible rod of cells running along the back of an embryo, the defining feature of chordates.
The Greek roots
νῶτον
nôton
the back
χορδή
khordḗ
gut-string, cord
Literally: “back cord”
The story of the word
Richard Owen coined it in the 1840s for the stiffening rod he found in embryos and in lancelets, and the name later gave a whole phylum its label: chordates are the animals that have one, which includes you. In humans it does not survive as a rod. It is absorbed into the developing spine and persists only as the soft pulpy centre of each intervertebral disc, the part that herniates. χορδή, a length of animal gut, also gives the strings on a lyre and so the chord in music.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1840s
Same family
chordatechordcordnotopod
In a sentence
In the lancelet the notochord persists for life, a pale rod under the skin.